The present invention relates to a waterproof hinge structure for glass doors and particularly a hinge structure that forms a tight contact between a support member and a door clamp means of a glass door of a shower stall.
Glass doors have unique material properties, therefore the commonly used hinges for wooden doors cannot be employed. Many hinge structures have been proposed and developed in the prior art to meet this requirement. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,867,869 entitled xe2x80x9cPressure hinge device for glass door or panelxe2x80x9d discloses an apparatus that includes a base plate mounted onto a wall, a glass clamp and a tram body attached to the base plate. The tram body has a main pivot roller which has two ends embedded in the glass clamp. The tram boy further has a plurality of holes each holding a spring pad and a spring which presses the spring pad to the main pivot roller for anchoring. In addition, the main pivot roller is coupled with a washer for fastening to the tram body securely.
Nowadays, the glass doors are widely used in shower stalls. As water tends to splash during shower, the glass doors aim at preventing the splashing water from spreading outside the shower stall. This function is especially important when the shower stall is located inside a room of a building. To satisfy this purpose, U.S. Pat. No. 6,070,294 entitled xe2x80x9cHinge for a shower screen doorxe2x80x9d discloses an apparatus that has glass clamping parts for holding the glass door and a circular door mounting part. As the door mounting part and the glass clamp parts form a curved surface at the contact portion, and the glass clamp parts and the door mounting part form a plane at the contact portion, the curved surface and the plane form a line contact at the adjoining location. During installation, a slight deviation of accuracy could result in a gap, and water is prone to seep or flow out through the glass door, and the surroundings outside the shower stall could become damp and smeared.
Therefore the primary object of the invention is to resolve the aforesaid disadvantages. The invention provides a waterproof hinge structure for glass doors to prevent water from seeping outside the shower stall and smearing surroundings outside the shower stall, and to retard rusting of the hinge structure. Another object of the invention is to prevent the glass clamp means and the support member from hitting each other when the glass door is swiveled over 90xc2x0 and to avoid scratches from occurring on the surface of the support member, thereby to avoid the paint coated on the surface of the support member from peeling off and to prevent rusting or damaging of the aesthetic appeal that might otherwise occurred to the support member.
In order to achieve the foregoing objects, the waterproof hinge structure of the invention consists of an anchor dock fixedly mounted onto a wall with a plurality of holes formed thereon; a support member fastening to the anchor dock that has a pivotal trough formed on one side thereof and anchor apertures formed on another side normal to and communicating with the pivotal trough; a pivotal axle pivotally housed in the pivotal trough having an anchor plane and anchor struts; each anchor aperture housing an anchor element and an elastic element, the anchor element having one end engaged with the hole of the anchor dock; a door clamp means which includes a holding clip with a cutaway notch formed thereon, a clamp clip and two gaskets, the notch has an upper side and a lower side with a trough formed respectively thereon corresponding to each other and a vertical side with a plurality of coupling holes formed thereon, and screw holes formed on an inner side of the holding clip, the clamp clip and two gaskets have apertures formed thereon corresponding to the screw holes for fastening the door clamp means to the glass door; the anchor strut of the pivotal axle is coupled in the trough of the holding clip to enable the glass door and the support member to form a pivotal turning relationship; and a pad element including an arched surface and a plurality of stubs located on the arched surface to engage with the coupling holes, the arched surface having two sides each extends to form a bulged rim. The hinge structure thus constructed can tightly hold the glass door by clamping the glass door securely through the support member and the door clamp means. Therefore water in the shower stall is prevented from splashing or seeping outside the shower stall, and the surroundings of the shower stall may be maintained dry and neat.